An investigating committee met, that evening, at Mrs. Snigham's--sitting, in secret session, over her best china. Though invited only to a quiet "tea," the amount of judicial business they transacted on the occasion was prodigious. The biscuits were actually cold before the committee had a chance to eat anything. There was so much to talk over--and it was so important that it should be firmly established that each member had always been "certain sure that something extraordinary would be happening to that man yet," that it was near eight o'clock before Mrs. Snigham gave anybody a second cup. XLVII BROAD SUNSHINE One snowy day in January, Laurens Boekman went with his father to pay his respects to the Brinker family. Raff was resting after the labors of the day; Gretel, having filled and lighted his pipe, was brushing every speck of ash from the hearth; the dame was spinning; and Hans, perched upon a stool by the window, was diligently studying his lessons--A peaceful, happy household whose main excitement during the past week had been the looking forward to this possible visit from Thomas Higgs. As soon as the grand presentation was over, Dame Brinker insisted upon giving her guests some hot tea; it was enough to freeze any one, she said, to be out in such crazy, blustering weather. While they were talking with her husband she whispered to Gretel that the young gentleman's eyes and her boy's were certainly as much alike as four beans, to say nothing of a way they both had of looking as if they were stupid and yet knew as much as a body's grandfather. Gretel was disappointed. She had looked forward to a tragic scene, such as Annie Bouman had often described to her, from story books; and here was the gentleman who came so near being a murderer, who for ten years had been wandering over the face of the earth, who had believed himself deserted and scorned by his father--the very young gentleman who had fled from his country in such magnificent trouble, sitting by the fire just as pleasant and natural as could be! To be sure his voice had trembled when he talked with her parents, and he had met his father's look with a bright kind of smile that would have suited a dragon-killer bringing the waters of perpetual youth to his king--but after all he wasn't at all like the conquered hero in Annie's book. He did not say, lifting his hand toward Heaven, "I hereby swear to be forever faithful to my home, my God and my country!" which would have been only right and proper under the circumstances.